Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

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🆕 דאָנאַ, דאָנאַ | Dona, Dona — a song by Aaron Zeitlin for the Yiddish play Esterke (1940), with Ladino and Aramaic translations by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributed by: Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Aaron Zeitlin

Originally written by Aaron Zeitlin for the Yiddish play “Esterke” in 1940, ‘Dona Dona’ is a popular song the world over, having been adapted to many languages — often not preserving the original, deeply Jewish context. The gist of the original lyrics, which never state their metaphor outright, is: a calf is bound to a wagon being dragged to the slaughterhouse. It looks up and sees a swallow flying around. The farmer shouts at it, saying “it’s your own fault for being a calf and not a bird!” The implication being: the people telling the Jews it’s our own fault we’re persecuted are the ones driving the wagon. Gentiles will murder Jews, the song implies to us, and then say Jews are to blame because of how murderable our Jewish face is, so maybe we should get a less murderable and more goyish face. But the whole time they’re the one with the knife. Here included is the original Yiddish text (in the Ukrainish theatre dialect), as well as new translations into Ladino and Aramaic. . . .

💬 דָּנִיֵּאל וְהַתַּנִּין | Daniel vs. the Dragon, according to the Judeo-Aramaic text found in Divrei Yeraḥmiel, vocalized and cantillated by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributed by: Moses Gaster, Yeraḥmiel ben Shlomo, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

Daniel’s battle with the Dragon, one of the apocryphal Additions to Daniel, is affixed to the end of the book in the Septuagint. The editor has here included a new vocalized and cantillated edition of the Aramaic text preserved in the 12th century Divrei Yeraḥmiel (Oxford Bodleian Heb d.11 transcribed by Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster). The language of this passage is an odd synthesis of Targumic, pseudo-Biblical Aramaic, and even some Syriac forms, so the editor’s vocalization is aiming for a happy medium of all the possibilities. (In several locations Divrei Yeraḥmiel uses incorrect Hebrew-specific forms, probably due to scribal error. These are here marked as a qere-ketiv split.) . . .

Σουσαννα | שׁוֹשַׁנָּה וְהַזְּקֵנִים | Shoshanah & the Elders, according to Theodotion translated and cantillated in Masoretic Hebrew by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributed by: Theodotion (translation/Greek), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

The story of Shoshanah & the Elders, according to the text of Theodotion translated into Biblical Hebrew. . . .

Βηλ Και Δρακων | בֵּל וְהַתַּנִּין | Bel & the Dragon, according to Theodotion translated and cantillated in Masoretic Hebrew by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributed by: Theodotion (translation/Greek), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

The story of Bel and the Dragon according to the text of Theodotion, translated into biblical Hebrew. . . .

סֵפֶר חֲנוֹךְ | The Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 83-90), with Aramaic Fragments and translations in Ge’ez and English

Contributed by: Robert Henry Charles (translation), Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

A mytho-historical chronicle of the story of humanity and Israel up until the Maccabean revolt depicted as a fable through a dream vision of Ḥanokh. . . .

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